By Lars Otto Naess, FAC Climate Change theme convenor, and Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex.

CGIAR Climate's insight:

While there is broad agreement that the increased focus on climate change and agriculture provides important opportunities, the case studies suggest that it is too early to say whether these opportunities translate into benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable groups and how this should happen in practice.

The failure of the discussions on agriculture in Doha could be used as an opening to better understand what is at stake, and under what conditions concepts such as ‘climate smart agriculture’ could improve the lives of poor and vulnerable farmers.

Lack of proper leadership at the community level is also another source of poverty. Good leaders should be able to help the community to manage the resources and create meaningful wealth. If we engage the community to plant trees then we must provide alternative energy and other meaningful economic activities to support live. Leaders must be able to form effective community teams - like saccos to initiate and take ownership of economic processes/activities, attract funding and apply proper implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of community projects

Lack of proper leadership at the community level is also another source of poverty. Good leaders should be able to help the community to manage the resources and create meaningful wealth. If we engage the community to plant trees then we must provide alternative energy and other meaningful economic activities to support live. Leaders must be able to form effective community teams - like saccos to initiate and take ownership of economic processes/activities, attract funding and apply proper implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of community projects

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the global agricultural sector could potentially reduce and remove 80 to 88 percent of the carbon dioxide that it currently emits. By adopting more-sustainable approaches, small-scale agriculture in developing countries has the potential to contribute 70 percent of agriculture’s global mitigation of climate change. And many of these innovations have the potential to be replicated, adapted, and scaled up for application on larger farms, helping to improve water availability, increase diversity, and improve soil quality, as well as mitigate climate change.

We wish to bring to your notice that the "Green Universe Environmental Services Society (GUESS)" head-quartered at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India was established in 1998. Since then we have been promoting various eco friendly concepts, pro-environmental initiatives and sustainable development projects. With our vast field-level practical experiences we have observed and noticed that the farmers of our country are facing severe crop loss issues due to wild boar & wild animal attacks, frequent natural calamities, global warming effects, non availability of labour, cost escalation and climate change issues. It is known fact that many of the wild animals have shifted their habitations from the forests to farm fields due to man-made mistakes such as severe deforestation and high level destruction in the forest areas.

Due to the above situations the farmers who make 70% of the Indian community are leaving agriculture and migrating to the urban habitations in search of livelihoods resulting in many of the villages are becoming deserts and the population pressure is at high level in urban areas which is causing various social & economic issues. It is fact that the most of the countries are shifting towards naturals in all walks of life and the demand for natural products is ever increasing and it is time to throw light on promotion of different eco-friendly sustainable farming measures & concepts to the struggling farmer community.

Keeping in view the alarming situation faced by the farming community due to wild boar & animal attacks which is great concern to the society today we have come up with an eco-friendly, cost-effective sustainable solution of "Henna Bio Fence." It is non-grazing & pest-free because it is astringent & pungent in nature which can be an effective NPM measure, sustains for longer period hence it is perennial, drought tolerant because it can pass through severe climatic situations, creates additional man days through raising & post harvest measures and also generates income because the demand for natural dyes is ever increasing. Hence "Henna Bio Fence" can be an eco-friendly cost-effective sustainable solution in place of highly expensive solar, chain linked mesh & barbed wire fences and can act as income & employment generating measure.

Natural dyes are pro-environment and obtained from renewable resources with no health hazards are traditionally used since ages to impart color. There is renewed interest in the application of natural dyes throughout the world today, as eco-friendly norms become stringent and the awareness about protection and preservation of environment grows day by day. The entire world is facing the side effects of synthetic products and there has been increasing interest in natural dyes, as the public become aware of health issues, ecological and environmental problems related to the use of synthetic dyes. Henna as natural dye is being used in Textiles, Handlooms, Leather, Beauty & Health Care, Cosmetics and Tattoo Industries etc.

Considering the above facts, concerns and in light of the multi beneficial advantages, as responsible NGO we have initiated this "Henna Bio Fence" project to help the struggling farmers. We request for financial collaboration to impart trainings, to create awareness, to transform the concept and to provide input cost to encourage an eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective "Henna Bio Fence" to the farmers to protect the crops from wild boar & animal attacks and to improve their income levels. In addition to the crop protection measure there is lot of scope for employment generation through value addition and marketing.

Henna Bio Fence is also useful as NPM, NTFP, SMC & NRM measures. The Decoction of henna leaves because of its strong chemical composition can be used as Bio Pesticide for all the crops which reduces the pest management expenditure for a longer period. It also controls the cross pollination (Isolation) issues between different crops. Henna Bio Fence in one meter width all along the periphery of the crop fields in multiple (6-9) rows with close spacing will become as thick & strong fence which completely arrests the wild boar and animal attacks. Reducing crop loss itself is great benefit to the farmers and as well to the nation and also there are many social & economic advantages in addition to the crop protection measure.

Keeping in view the above facts, we request the International Organizations who are very much concern about environment & global warming effects for financial contributions from Carbon Trade Funds, Environment Protection Funds, Ecological Balancing Funds, Global Warming Budgets, CSR & CER initiatives to provide them an eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective "Henna Bio Fence" for their farm fields to protect the crops from animal attacks and to improve the income levels of the farming community. Hence, we request your kind attention towards a noble cause of "Vruksho Rakshathi Rakshithaha" by providing them the input cost from different possible funds & measures to help the struggling farmers who are feeding our Nation. The detailed project report will be submitted after hearing from you. We await quick response in this regard to make this pro-environmental project successful. We are hereby providing the YouTube link of promo film on Henna Bio Fence for information.

In the course of his Guest Lecture at the opening of the 30th General Assembly of ICSU in Rome, Professor Matthias Kleiner, President of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the German Research Foundation, announced two projects that DFG...

For agricultural systems to achieve climate-smart objectives, including improved food security and rural livelihoods as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation, they often need to be take a landscape approach; they must become...

University of Leeds News - Food security effects of climate change will be felt in 10 years - Research released today shows that within the next 10 years large parts of Asia can expect increased risk of more severe droughts, which will impact...

Climate change is making extreme weather much more likely. As the 2012 drought in the USA shows, extreme weather means extreme food prices. Our failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty. This briefing draws on new research commissioned by Oxfam which models the impact of extreme weather – like droughts, floods and heat waves – on the prices of key international staple crops in 2030. It suggests that existing research, which considers the gradual effects of climate change but does not take account of extreme weather, is significantly underestimating the potential implications of climate change for food prices. This research shows how extreme weather events in a single year could bring about price spikes of comparable magnitude to two decades of long-run price rises. It signals the urgent need for a full stress-testing of the global food system in a warming world.

FAO, IFAD, and WFP issued a joint statement on food prices: "In responding to high food prices, the things we must avoid doing are just as important as the things we should do. In particular, countries must avoid panic buying and refrain from imposing export restrictions, which, while temporarily helping some consumers at home, are generally inefficient and make life difficult for everyone else.Above all, however, we must understand that high food prices are a symptom, and not the disease. So while the international community must take early action to prevent excessive price increases, it should also move to act on the root causes behind such surges."

New report by Lars Hein and Rik Leemans. The large majority of biofuels to date is “first-generation” biofuel made from agricultural commodities. All first-generation biofuel production systems require phosphorus (P) fertilization. P is an essential plant nutrient, yet global reserves are finite. We argue that committing scarce P to biofuel production involves a trade-off between climate change mitigation and future food production. We examine biofuel production from seven types of feedstock, and find that biofuels at present consume around 2% of the global inorganic P fertilizer production. For all examined biofuels, with the possible exception of sugarcane, the contribution to P depletion exceeds the contribution to mitigating climate change. The relative benefits of biofuels can be increased through enhanced recycling of P, but high increases in P efficiency are required to balance climate change mitigation and P depletion impacts. We conclude that, with the current production systems, the production of first-generation biofuels compromises food production in the future.

Dar es Salaam — Recent research done by different scientists in Africa has shown that production of important crops especially maize will decrease by 30% for the period of 20 years due to the effect of Climate Change.

The most affected areas according to scientists are in the Southern and Eastern Africa including Tanzania.

That was revealed by the Assistant Director of Environment in the Vice President's Office, Mr Richard Muyungi in Dar es Salaam last week during the agriculture workshop organized by Agriculture Council of Tanzania (ACT).

"Recent research done by different scientists in Africa has shown that production of important crops especially maize will decrease by 30% for the period of 20 years due to the effect of Climate Change."

By Lars Otto Naess, FAC Climate Change theme convenor, and Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex.

CGIAR Climate's insight:

While there is broad agreement that the increased focus on climate change and agriculture provides important opportunities, the case studies suggest that it is too early to say whether these opportunities translate into benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable groups and how this should happen in practice.

The failure of the discussions on agriculture in Doha could be used as an opening to better understand what is at stake, and under what conditions concepts such as ‘climate smart agriculture’ could improve the lives of poor and vulnerable farmers.

Lack of proper leadership at the community level is also another source of poverty. Good leaders should be able to help the community to manage the resources and create meaningful wealth. If we engage the community to plant trees then we must provide alternative energy and other meaningful economic activities to support live. Leaders must be able to form effective community teams - like saccos to initiate and take ownership of economic processes/activities, attract funding and apply proper implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of community projects

Lack of proper leadership at the community level is also another source of poverty. Good leaders should be able to help the community to manage the resources and create meaningful wealth. If we engage the community to plant trees then we must provide alternative energy and other meaningful economic activities to support live. Leaders must be able to form effective community teams - like saccos to initiate and take ownership of economic processes/activities, attract funding and apply proper implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of community projects

Young scientists are invited to submit applications for participation in a Networking Conference on Integrated Science.

The ISSC and ICSU, in collaboration with the DFG, are planning to assemble a large group of young researchers with diverse research perspectives to reflect on Food Futures and debate relevant issues as part of a series of conferences on Integrated Science. The aim is to bring together creative multidimensional, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives to address such a complex topic like food systems. These early career scientists will ask what are and will be the challenges related to food, now and in the future, and they are expected to devise the next generation of research programmes and projects, looking for a suitable definition and means to reach global sustainability goals.

Regulating livestock greenhouse gas emissions could shift livestock production to unregulated, less developed countries unless those poorer nations can be enticed to preserve their forested lands, according to a Purdue University economic study. Photo: N Palmer (CIAT)

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